Agcensus Overview

Introduction

agCensus Digimap offers access to a time-series database of grid square based data derived from the regular Agricultural Censuses of England, Scotland and Wales.

The Agricultural Census is conducted in June each year by the government departments dealing with Agriculture and Rural Affairs for Scotland, England, and Wales. Farmers are surveyed in each year via a postal questionnaire, with the farmer declaring the agricultural activity on their land.

In Scotland the census covers all major agricultural holdings, but in England and Wales a stratified sample of holdings are surveyed. Data for non-surveyed farms is extrapolated from previous years and trends on comparable farms.

The respective government departments publish information relating to farm holdings for recognised geographies for c.150 items of data. Algorithms developed by EDINA convert small area data provided by the government agencies into grid squares of 2, 5 or 10 km.

Data resolution

agCensus data are available for a range of different spatial resolutions and for different time periods as noted below.

Resolutions - 2k, 5k and 10k for all years EXCEPT England 2010 (2k not available).

Census availability

The data for England and Wales is only available separately from 1999. Before 1999, the data for England and Wales is grouped together.

More items may be available for a single country than for Great Britain as a whole.

GB

Harmonized sub set of variables for specific years 1969, 1976, 1981, 1988, 1994.

England

2000, 2003, 2004, 2010, 2016.

Wales

2000-2018 (missing 2001).

Scotland

1969 - 2019 (missing 1970/71/73/74/75/77/78; 1980/83/87; 1998/99;2002).